Skip to main content

Review of Flash Festival 2016: Altered by Faux Pas Theatre at Castle Hill URC

Altered from Faux Pas Theatre takes memory as its theme and the possibility that you could be tricked and coerced into a false memory. Its case study comes from the true story of Beth Rutherford and her battle with what she remembers of her past is actually true.

Altered is classic Flash fodder, take a very serious subject, treat with care and delicacy in exploration scenes of quietness. Then all of a sudden throw in some classic and over the top buffoonery. I have seen it done before in Flash many times and for most of the time Faux Pas' quintuple of ladies hit the nail on the head with the balance.

There are quite a few brilliant individual scenes of entertainment, with my favourite the hypnosis one as we switch with perfect timing between the character of Beth (Sophie Rose-Darby) and her taped off council room and the three other actors completing and adding words to sentences in increasingly comic ways. Often including singing in these parts also highlights some very good use of music throughout. This whole scene was delivered perfectly timed.

The story of Beth Rutherford really is quite eye opening and throughout the piece you almost become aware yourself that the old phrase "memory can play tricks on us" is surprisingly accurate. Through coercion, we perhaps could all believe something that never truly happened.

The cast of this group is particularly strong, and from previous shows clearly featuring a number of the best performers from the whole year. Sophie gets the bulk of the substantial serious material to cover and at no point does she disappoint. It is an emotional and very naturalistic performance and the scene towards the end where she doubles as Beth and her father is particularly well played, although while watching I have to admit I was unsure of how well the scene worked. In hindsight, though at my classic day after reviewing time and a mulling over, I now think it did work perfectly well. It was also actually quite a brave decision for a group of five to give such an important and quite long scene just to a single performer and shows that this group really were working together.

Megan Burda had the equally challenging role of being mostly quite serious during the show with little opportunity to join in with the silly antics of the rest. She is mostly solid in the role of the councillor with just a few stumbles at times, which are understandable with the wordy lines. She does however hold the serious nature of the character very well despite some of the antics that are going on behind her at times.

Those antics are performed by the rest of the cast; Aoife Smythe, Ellen Shersby-Wignall and Lucy Kitson; who spend most of their performance in that of a comic role, creating the surround for the serious counselling scenes. Ellen was impressive as the over the top host, all classic shouty and boldness addressing us the audience. Lucy was quite brilliant in her little scene lampooning a piece from "That Morning" helping to cultivate a false memory. Finally Aoife's magic moment came with her surprisingly skilled posh accent, use especially in that fabulous scene where she attempts to implant a memory into Lucy's character, plenty of leg cocking action going on.

The Faux Pas group really have worked well together to create a performance which features much that you expect from a Flash show. Stimulating thoughts in its audience while entertaining with frankly silly antics in equal measure, it is a very entertaining piece. Also where else in theatre would you get to see someone dressed up as a bacon rasher?


The Flash Festival 2016 runs between Monday 16th and Saturday 21st May, 2016 at four venues across the town. Details can be found at http://ftfevents.wix.com/flashtheatre2016

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Lord Of The Dance at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The stage show Lord of the Dance possibly needs little introduction to most people, as it has become a legend and now, in this touring version, subtitled rather immodestly, 25 Years of Standing Ovations, it reaches a landmark anniversary. Those that do not know of the show would probably well know its spiritual fathers Michael Flatley, and even more likely Riverdance , from which Lord of the Dance sprung with a proper spring in its step. During the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, Riverdance hit the world by storm as Michael Flatley and his troop of dancers possibly presented the most famous part of Eurovision ever, certainly of the non-singing variety at least. Here, this touring show brings that same style Flatley created from traditional Irish dancing across the country once again and it is truly something special to see. The concept of the show is simply a battle between good and evil told through dance, and some captivating and stunning songs performed by Celyn Cartw...

Review of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Milton Keynes Theatre

There have been numerous productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's groundbreaking musical since it first appeared in 1968 and opened in the West End in 1973. One might wonder if there is still room for another tour. However, judging by the packed audience in Milton Keynes Theatre for the opening night of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat , much interest remains for this show. Also, with this production first seen at The London Palladium in June 2019, and with a few production elements altered, Joseph still has, after all those years, the room to change and evolve. However, the question is, does this change help or hinder the show's history? For those unfamiliar with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, it tells the story of Joseph, Jacob's favourite son, in a lighthearted and musical style that jumps between various genres. Joseph's brothers are somewhat envious of him, leading to them selling him into slavery to an Egyptian nobleman. As for ...

Review of Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The Rambert Dance Company is the oldest such company in Britain having first performed in 1926. However, despite this, this was my first encounter with the group in my ten years of theatre-going. Coupled with this, it was also my first encounter with Peaky Blinders , having never seen the show, and only knowing a few vague things about it. My companion for the evening however was very familiar with the show, allowing some background behind the show. It turns out though,  Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby needs a little more than a good bit of knowledge of the show, as despite this production having incredible style, there struggles to be a cohesive structure to the show and the storytelling. Much more than other dance shows as well. The first act does a whistle-stop tour of the first five seasons and while it is a feast on the eye, and on the ear, it gets extremely confusing at times. The second act is freestyle and drifts away from the stories tol...